


Toddler Tales - The Emperor's Shadow

by Sister of Silence (Orcbait)



Series: An Age of Heroes [7]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Cute, Gen, Lovecraftian, Toddlers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 16:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5593117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orcbait/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 30th millennium sees the on set of the Great Crusade; a time of glory and exploration, a time when the boundaries of reality become forever shifted. Toddler Arlette, perhaps like every child, has a boundless imagination that takes her to marvelous places, figments of the overly stimulated mind of a child that has already seen more of reality unravel than most Imperial citizens will in their entire life. However, it becomes ever more apparent that not all her tales are flights of fancy. And that some of her imaginings are terrifyingly real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toddler Tales - The Emperor's Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Set really early in the Crusade Era, this is the same timeline as teen!Horus being found and raised by the Emperor. Arlette is still an adorable toddler here.

“No!”The girl’s shrill voice pitched as she snatched her plushie back. She scrambled up and climbed into the wardrobe, closing the antique doors with a snap . “Go away!”

“I apologise, my Emperor,” Chief Companion Vendatha commented. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her today.”

“It’s all right, Vendu,” the Emperor replied though a frown creased His brow.

“She’ll come out eventually.” Vendatha nodded. “We’ll be in the west garden with tea and lemon cakes, Arlette,” he said to the closed doors. He waited, but the toddler didn’t answer. He shook his head. “Perhaps it is one of those phases.”

“Perhaps,” the Emperor mused, His gaze still upon the armoire. He resisted the urge to pull open the doors and gather up the child inside. She’d seemed frightened of Him, but why? What had she seen?

“My Emperor?” Vendatha’s hand was on His shoulder.

The Emperor smiled at him. “Tea would be lovely, Vendu.”

 

O O O Earlier that day O O O

 

Arlette sat at the edge of the Hegemon plaza by the feet of a large marble statue, her back to its plinth. Her tiny toddler frame all but disappeared behind it. Even though there were twenty such plinths around her, only three had a statue so far.

  
“Welcome to this very important meeting in which we will speak of very important things,” she said solemnly as she poured imaginary tea into a tiny tea cup for a felt plushie that looked suspiciously much like the Emperor. She poured three more cups and brought these to the three primarch statues around her. Then she sat back down in front of the plushie, poured herself a cup and took a sip, one tiny brown pinkie in the air. “Our first important thing,” she continued on that same solemn tone as she put down the tea cup and smoothened her miniature council robes. “Is whether to allow cookies before dinner. Empwah is against. Hoors is for because he always eats cookies before dinner, so he cannot say I cannot. Fulwim too, as he gives them to me. So.” She put her small hands on her hips. “It comes down to what you decide, uncle Turbo.” She looked up at the enormous marble statue of primarch Perturabo that she sat beneath. “Will we have cookies before dinner?”

  
As she gazed up at the primarch’s stony visage she saw the Emperor, out of the corner of her eyes, disappearing behind the tall doors of the Hall of Leng on the other side of the plaza. “Empwah?” she called as she rose and picked up her plushie. She had not seen Him in a few days. He must join the council! “Empwah!” she called again as she ran across the plaza as fast as her wobbly little legs would carry her. The doors He had entered through were enormous as they loomed up before her. They were old and wooden with frightening, leering faces and staring eyes. She tried not to look at them as she wriggled through the crack and into the darkness beyond.

  
She came into a large, dusky hall filled with staggering piles of toys! They were piled up all the way to the high ceiling. Or were they stacked from the ceiling to the mismatching tiled floor? The walls slanted inward, meeting the floor at impossible outward angles. She wanted to play with the toys and meant to ask Him, but she didn’t see Him any more. “Empwah?” she called uncertainly, her voice small in the enormous space. No answer came. The hall remained quiet. She backed up towards the door, holding her plushie clutched against her. She didn’t think she wanted to play here after all.

  
She was about to turn back when she saw Him, some distance ahead rummaging among the toys. “Empwah!” she called happily as she ran towards him, her fear quite forgotten. Her little sandalled footsteps echoed around the hall louder and longer than they should, the distance to him farther than it appeared. She didn’t think any of this strange, for in her five years she’d seen more of the unknowable universe than most Imperial citizens would in their entire life.

  
He smiled when he heard the girl’s call and turned to her, his yellow robes rustling with his movements. “Hello, little one. We missed you.”

  
“I missed you too, Empwah,” Arlette replied as she hugged his legs. “I am holding a very important meeting about very important things. You must come too!” She held on to his robes with one tiny fist as she turned towards the door, fully expecting him to come along.

  
“And what is so important that we must attend it?” he asked as he picked the child up, stopping her from walking away.

  
She wriggled around in his hold until she sat comfortably on his hip, plushie clutched in one arm. “Cookies before dinner,” she explained solemnly, as if denied a basic right. “You said I couldn’t have any.”

  
“We said?” he echoed, his expression suddenly grave. “Little one, do you remember what we told you about mean beings?”

  
“Mean beings will do mean things just to be mean?” she replied. She remembered. He had told her while they were having tea with Malcador. Mean beings lived in the places just behind the real things, in shadows and cracks and small scary spaces. And some times, they could come out!

  
“Yes,” he nodded and petted her hair. “Little one, we would never deny you anything.”

  
“I can have cookies before dinner?” The disbelief was plain in her tone.

  
“You can have anything,” he promised, smiling bare immaculate white teeth. “Anything at all.”

  
The toddler grinned widely at his words and wrapped her little arms around his broad torso, hugging him tightly until her expression suddenly fell. “That was a mean being who said I could have no cookies,” she whispered.  
“We do think so, littlest,” he said as he petted her hair.

  
She pulled the loose cloth of his yellow robes in front of her like a shield. “It looked like you!” she squeaked as she eyed the hall around them before hiding entirely behind the faded cloth.

  
He looked down at the small child in her equally little council robes trying to hide under his. “It does look like us, but it is not us,” he said, carefully tugging a fold of cloth aside. Two large, frightful green eyes looked up at him from behind it. “Why are you afraid? We will keep you safe.”

  
“How will I know you are you, Empwah?” she said in a small voice as she looked around fearfully, as if expecting his malicious double to jump out from behind one of the piles of toys any moment now. Her tiny fists dug into the heavy cloth of his robes.

  
He frowned for a moment, then smiled. “Shall we give him the very secret powers to reveal mean beings?” he asked and indicated her plushie.

  
“Really?” her features screwed up into a frown. “You said it was very difficult to reveal mean beings!”

  
“Littlest,” he said gravely, petting her hair. “We never said that.” She yelped in fear, burying her small face in his robes once more. “There, there,” he shushed as he stroke her back soothingly. “Shall we give him the powers?”

  
She peeked up and nodded. He smiled and sat her down, sitting on his haunches to be on eye height with her. She held out the plushie with all the determination of her five years standard. He reached into the folds of his robes and produced a small token, suspended from a thin tangle of chain around his neck. “He’ll need this very special charm,” he said as he held up the chain, but made no attempt to put it around the plushie’s neck or even give it to her.

  
Arlette looked at the odd stone suspended from the queerly twisted chain. It shimmered prettily even though there was no direct light source near them. “Pretty!” she exclaimed happily and grabbed it into her small fist. As she put it around her plushie’s neck it slipped through a seem behind its felt armour, even though there was no gap in the stitching. “No magic spell?” she looked him up and down, seemingly disappointed.

  
“Of course there is a magic spell,” he smiled at her. “It has very difficult words though, we do not think you could say it.”

  
“I can do it!” she replied enthusiastically, getting caught up in their game. She did so love it when He made their words come alive for her.

  
“Very well,” he said, and recited words in an undulating tongue that sounded familiar, even though she couldn’t understand it.

  
Arlette mimicked the sounds he made, the ancient phrase grotesquely innocent in her baby voice.

  
“Almost, little one,” he encouraged her with a broad smile. “Listen to what I say.” He repeated the part she’d struggled with. It took her a few tries to get it right. “Good, good!” he said when she managed it and mused up her dark hair affectionately. “Now all of it,” he added, and repeated it for her one last time.

  
As she spoke the words their surroundings darkened and they sunk into a vaguely roaring abyss that swelled in intensity until it burst into a kaleidoscope of sourceless light. Arlette was sitting on her bum on a high, fantastically balustraded overlook amid soaring towers and great, faceted domes, glimmering gorgeously in the brilliant polychrome sky. She gazed up, enraptured by the pretty colours and the two orbs of fire hanging between the peaks of the looming mountains all around the impossible city. The surface she sat upon was of veined, polished stone, smooth and oddly warm to the touch. Its tiles were bizarrely cut, weirdly regular in their irregularity.

  
“Little one.”

  
The toddler turned her head towards the sound but didn’t quite take her gaze from the blue and green sky.

  
“Little one.”

  
Her gaze snapped away even though she was far from finished with looking at the sky. “You dropped this, little one,” he said with a smile as he handed her plushie to her. “Don’t lose it, or you might be lost.”

  
She hugged her plushie with both arms and nodded solemnly as he picked her up, before she looked once more at the sky as he carried her deeper into the shadow city.

 

O   O   O     Later     O   O   O

 

Vendatha glanced at his wrist clock. “Arlette, we have to go home now, th-,” he stopped speaking abruptly as he looked up. The tea council was deserted and the little girl was gone. He gave his dataslate a wary look. It hadn’t been that engrossing?

  
The plaza was empty. Where had she gone? He listened intently as he felt panic rear in his gut. It was quiet. Where had she gone?! Had something happened?! She could be lost. Abducted. Dea—. He stomped the thoughts down with the annihilating force of centuries of rigorous training. She was fine. She was a toddler and she could barely walk. She couldn’t have wandered far. He’d find her.

  
He rounded the enormous statue of Perturabo and almost immediately saw her. She was in the adjoining garden, near the pond. No need for alarm, there wasn’t a body of water deeper than twenty centimetres in this area. Shallow enough for her to sit in.

  
“Arlette!” he called as he approached, but the little girl did not respond. She remained crouched at the water edge, plushie under her arm.

  
“Arlette, I would appreciate it if you answered when I call to you,” Vendatha added as he reached for the mesmerised child. Something flitted away on the water, he saw it from the corner of his eyes. A shadow on the shimmering surface. A fish, no doubt.

  
“Endada?” the toddler tugged his wide sleeve. She stared up at him for a long moment. “I’m hungry,” she stated.

  
Vendatha blinked. “Yes, of course sweetheart,” he replied, then noticed the state of her garments. The edge of the small robes were all frayed and dirty. “Arlette, what have you been doing? Those were new, and a gift from the Emperor I might add.”

  
The toddler looked down at herself, as if noticing the state of her pretty clothes only now. And promptly started to cry.

  
“There, there,” Vendatha soothed as he picked her up. “Come, the Emperor will visit, remember?”

  
“Again?” she asked in disbelief.

  
Vendatha frowned. It had been several days since He had visited. “Yes.”

  
“Today he showed me the mirror city and mountains of glass,” she babbled as she leaned against Vendatha while he walked back to the Panlong compound. “We went to paddle at the dream lake where the dragon sleeps.”

  
Vendatha only half listened. She had such a wild imagination. If her accounts were to be believed He was there every minute of every day. Vendatha shook his head. He knew the Emperor had told her about the warp at Malcador’s request, but he himself held reservations about wether that had been wise. She was terribly curious and too young to understand danger in any real way. Everything was a game to her - as it should be, she was a child  - but such knowledge was difficult to process even for an adult mind, what might it do to a child’s? In that regard he didn’t share their concerns, what would the warp want with a toddler? His own worries concerned more mundane trouble, such as dissidents. They were a far more immediate threat should they learn of her existence. However, he was no psyker and he trusted them to do what was best for her in that regard, even though he didn’t always agree.

  
“And we sailed to the sky through the roaring abyss back home,” Arlette concluded her tale.

  
“That sounds wonderful,” Vendatha replied as he walked into her bedroom and sat her down on her bed. He provided her a small bowl and wash cloth. “Clean your face and your hands,” he instructed. Then they picked out clean clothes and he helped her put them on.

  
“Vendatha? Arlette?”

  
Vendatha smiled at the broad grin that painted itself on the toddler’s face. “Empwah!” she cried out, jumping up on her bed. She clutched her plushie to her chest as she looked expectantly at the door. Yet her cheer turned into a frightful scream when it opened. Instead of the Emperor’s familiar outline there stood a sinewy warrior in sackcloth, a soaring eagle burned into His brown chest. His dark, waist length hair was bound with red twine, His brow crowned with fire. And though His angular features were familiar, they were harder, sharper, and indeterminately more ancient. When His gaze found hers, his eyes leaked starlight upon the floor. Arlette stood transfixed as she gazed upon Him. His eyes encompassed all the universe and stared right into her very soul.

  
“No!” she shrieked and darted towards the wardrobe, scrambling inside. “Go away!” she cried shrilly as she clutched her plushie, her small nose buried against its felt armour. The pendant slipped out, warm and faintly pulsing. It shimmered colours it didn’t possess in the sliver of light coming through the doors.

  
_What is it, little one?_

  
She looked fearfully from the doors to her plushie, cuddling it closer. “The mean being is back!” she whispered against its soft cloth.

  
_Don’t be afraid. We’ll keep you safe._

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it! If you decide to share my story, please credit and link back to me. Thank you!


End file.
